Religion, Politics and American Foreign Policy in the Middle East

In the United States, religion and politics are intertwined. This entwinement helps to explain America\u27s strong and unwavering support for Israel. Jewish-Americans, virtually across the board, are strong supporters of Israel, despite strong disagreement over a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The influence of Jewish-Americans on American foreign policy in the Middle East is primarily by way of Jewish strength in the Democratic party. Not only do Jewish-Americans strongly support Democratic candidates in all elections, but all but one of the disproportionately high number of Jewish Senators and Representatives in Congress are Democrats. The Republicans are also strong supporters of Israel, because many conservative Christians, an important component of Republican voters, believe that Jewish control of the holy land will bring about a second coming of Christ. Finally, the overwhelming majority of Americans, religious and non-religious, support Israel, because it is a democratic state, and because they have a favorable opinion of Jewish-Americans, and at best a mixed opinion about Arab-Americans and Moslems. in general. The main thesis of the presentation is Jewish-American support for Israel, combined with their support of the Democratic Party, can help President Obama in his efforts to achieve a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Jewish-American members of Congress, and the liberal part of the American-Jewish community that favors a solution can provide a degree of cover for the President. This degree of cover, reflected in assuring the Jewish community and the rest of the Nation, that the President is a strong supporter of Israel, may serve to deflect criticism of the President from those from the conservative part of the Jewish community and from Christian conservatives, and may make any solution that the President succeeds in bringing about politically acceptable to the American public

NATO at 60: A Hollow Alliance

As the North Atlantic Treaty Organization celebrates its 60th birthday, there are mounting signs of trouble within the alliance and reasons to doubt the organization's relevance regarding the foreign policy challenges of the 21st century. Several developments contribute to those doubts. Although NATO has added numerous new members during the past decade, most of them possess minuscule military capabilities. Some of them also have murky political systems and contentious relations with neighboring states, including (and most troubling) a nuclear-armed Russia. Thus, NATO's new members are weak, vulnerable, and provocative -- an especially dangerous combination for the United States in its role as NATO's leader. There are also growing fissures in the alliance about how to deal with Russia. The older, West European powers tend to favor a cautious, conciliatory policy, whereas the Central and East European countries advocate a more confrontational, hard-line approach. The United States is caught in the middle of that intra-alliance squabble. Perhaps most worrisome, the defense spending levels and military capabilities of NATO's principal European members have plunged in recent years. The decay of those military forces has reached the point that American leaders now worry that joint operations with U.S. forces are becoming difficult, if not impossible.The ineffectiveness of the European militaries is apparent in NATO's stumbling performance in Afghanistan. NATO has outlived whatever usefulness it had. Superficially, it remains an impressive institution, but it has become a hollow shell -- far more a political honor society than a meaningful security organization. Yet, while the alliance exists, it is a vehicle for European countries to free ride on the U.S.military commitment instead of spending adequately on their own defenses and taking responsibility for the security of their own region. American calls for greater burden-sharing are even more futile today than they have been over the past 60 years. Until the United States changes the incentives by withdrawing its troops from Europe and phasing out its NATO commitment, the Europeans will happily continue to evade their responsibilities. Today's NATO is a bad bargain for the United States. We have security obligations to countries that add little to our own military power. Even worse, some of those countries could easily entangle America in dangerous parochial disputes. It is time to terminate this increasingly dysfunctional alliance

Assessing the Modern Era of International Trade

This Book Review surveys The Post-Cold War Trading System by Sylvia Ostry. Part I explains the features of international trade law and policy the book highlights, and the perspectives offered by the book about those features. Part II of this review critically analyzes the book. It identifies the issues not addressed, and the arguments not made. Part II thereby imparts to the prospective reader a sense of what must be learned from other sources on international trade law and policy. Part III offers a brief concluding observation about the future direction of international trade scholarship

Piracy in Russia and China: A Different U.S. Reaction

Both Russia and China refused to adopt international copyright agreements until pressured by other countries, particularly the US. The US has pursued China\u27s copyright abuses more aggressively than it has pursued similar abuses by Russia. Neigel attempts to explain the reasons for this disparate treatment

Security in northeast Asia: structuring a settlement

A potential pathway exists for a Northeast Asian settlement where the Koreas, the United States, China, and Japan can each live within the status quo. Sustaining a settlement will require reining in foreign policy hawks reluctant to allow the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to retain a nuclear arsenal. The United States will also need to engage allies fearful of conflict with North Korea but also disinclined to let a neighboring state enjoy a local nuclear monopoly. The United States should continue outreach to North Korea with the objective of establishing a process that links sanctions relief and security guarantees to a plan for eventual denuclearization. The future China-DPRK relationship must be considered and isolated from the US-China relationship— notably, economic tensions and disputes in the South and East China Seas. It should facilitate Chinese leverage over North Korea and encourage China to reinforce its economic and security ties with North Korea to influence and restrain Pyongyang’s decision making. The Trump administration must earn the support of stakeholders across the policy-making and procedural spectrum and facilitate a domestic political consensus in favor of the emerging settlement. Securing a settlement in Northeast Asia may be a productive way of reducing one of the most troublesome spots in US foreign relations.1Published versio

\u3cem\u3eBush v. Gore\u3c/em\u3e: The Worst (or at Least Second-to-the-Worst) Supreme Court Decision Ever

In the stiff competition for worst Supreme Court decision ever, two candidates stand heads above the others for the simple reason that they precipitated actual fighting wars in their times. By holding that slaves, as mere chattels, could not sue in court and could never be American citizens, and further invalidating the Missouri Compromise, which had prohibited slavery in new territories, Dred Scott v. Sanford charted the course to secession and Civil War four years later. By disenfranchising Florida voters and thereby appointing popular-vote loser George W. Bush as President, Bush v. Gore set in motion events which would lead to two wars, neither of which is concluded over a decade later, as well as an unregulated greed-fest on Wall Street that continues to unhinge our economic well-being. As Professor Laurence Tribe, one of Vice President Gore’s lawyers, observed with understatement recently: “Some wrongfully decided Supreme Court decisions can be belatedly righted. Bush v. Gore cannot.

A New Liberal Trade Policy Foundation

With the enactment of Trade Promotion Authority legislation in August of 2002\u27 and a lackluster performance by Democrats in the November elections that followed, 2 a profound question looms over the left wing of the American body politic, a question that has attracted all too little attention to date: Has the time come for a new liberal approach to international trade and globalization